New York
CNN
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CNN, one of the world’s most popular news websites, has begun asking some of its visitors to pay $3.99 a month for access.
On Tuesday, the news organization is laying the first bricks on a so-called “pagwall” that should, over time, help foot the bill for CNN’s journalism around the world.
“Starting today, we’re asking users in the United States to pay a small recurring fee for unlimited access to CNN.com’s world-class articles,” wrote Alex MacCallum, CNN’s executive vice president of products and services. digital, in an internal memo that described the plan.
The average visitor to CNN’s website, who might read only a few articles a month, will not be required to pay at this time. “Only after users consume a certain number of free items will they be prompted to subscribe,” MacCallum explained. “In addition to unlimited access to CNN.com articles, subscribers will receive benefits such as exclusive election features, original documentaries, a curated daily selection of our most distinctive journalism and fewer digital ads.”
MacCallum and her boss Mark Thompson, chairman and chief executive of CNN, are both veterans of The New York Times, which is the envy of the news business for its success in converting online readers and gamers into subscribers with payment.
In a memo over the summer, Thompson said CNN will “build best-in-class, subscription-ready products that deliver news, analysis and context you need to know in compelling new formats and experiences, starting with CNN.com’s first subscription product launch before the end of 2024.”
This paid offer is one that will launch on Tuesday – in a preliminary form that will be expanded in the coming months. “Over time, we will invest in ways to better meet the needs of our users and expand our openness to engage and serve new audiences,” MacCallum wrote on Tuesday, leaving to understand about “new products and businesses” in the future.
For brands like CNN that make most of their money from cable television, the challenge is clear: developing new digital revenue streams that can offset declines in legacy television.
Under previous management, CNN developed a streaming video product called CNN+ in 2022 to create direct-to-consumer relationships with the network’s fans. However, this product, launched just days before a new corporate parent, Warner Bros. Discovery, to take control and seek cost savings, was doomed. CNN+ was canceled within weeks.
CNN now aims to generate subscriptions with its flagship offerings. However, some content will remain fully accessible without a subscription, including the CNN home page; live breaking news; independent video sites; and sponsored articles.
Digital subscriptions have been a promising but challenging business for other news organizations. A recent study by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford found that only one in five American consumers are currently paying for news online.
Greg Piechota, a scholar-in-residence at the International News Media Association, said there is plenty of room for the industry to grow. “There is no subscription cap for online news,” Piechota said. “Imagine you are standing in front of the One World Trade skyscraper in downtown New York and look up at the observation deck. Most news brands have only gotten to the ground floor, and the 100th floor is a long way into the cloud.”
The Times is the highest by far, he said, with roughly 10 million digital subscribers.
Smaller news organizations have faced subscription fatigue and other sources of resistance — a reflection of the fact that nearly all news coverage was released for free when the World Wide Web became popular in the 1990s.
Media companies large and small have spent the last decade or so trying to change the norms around access to news.
However, many readers and viewers don’t connect the dots between personally paying for news and helping to support the industry as a whole. Piechota said “unfortunately, based on surveys, most consumers around the world are not aware of the financial challenges facing commercial news media.”
“But when they hear about the critical financial situation of the industry,” he said, “their willingness to pay for journalism is the highest, studies have shown.”